5 Free Tips to Pump Up Your Productivity

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Have you ever felt like there aren’t enough hours in the day? We’ve all struggled with managing a full schedule or a brimming inbox, and could all benefit from saving extra time throughout the day. Whether you are interested in pumping up your productivity in your personal life or your professional life, the Internet is full of free tools to help you achieve your goal.

Here’s a list of five services you shouldn’t be without if you’re interested in increasing your level of productivity, creating more time and ultimately (since time is money) helping you save or earn more.

1. Skype

Being able to communicate well can improve your productivity regardless of your occupation. Skype offers free and simple Internet telephony along with several other useful tools, like video chat and screen sharing. Screen sharing lets you avoid those awkward and frustrating phone calls that involve a client or remote colleague attempting to describe to you what is happening on their computer screen. Instead, you can now see what’s occurring on their screen in real time. Skype helps you eliminate common communication obstacles and can revolutionize the way you keep in touch with co-workers, clients, friends and family.

2. Google Docs

Have you ever lost a document you spent hours crafting because your computer crashed? Have you ever had to send drafts back and forth to an editor, constantly renaming documents and reattaching them to emails? Google Docs can save you from these headaches. By creating a document, spreadsheet, presentation or other file on Google Docs, you can access it anywhere you can get to your email. If your desktop computer crashes, you can pull up your docs at work on a friend’s computer. The “Share” function allows multiple people to work on a document at the same time, no matter where they are. And if you don’t want the people you share your document with to be able to edit it, you can limit them to only being able to view the document. Whenever you change something in your work, that change will automatically show up in their version, so there is no longer any need to send and re-send revised editions of documents.

3. MyStickies

This app helps you increase your productivity by allowing you to leave sticky notes on web pages throughout the Internet. But here’s the trick: Your sticky notes will be there whenever you return to that web page. By having your own personal sticky notes waiting for you on the websites you visit most frequently, you will be able to leave yourself useful reminders or even jot down your thoughts without worrying about misplacing them.

4. Bloglines

If you are a loyal follower of several blogs or just like to check a couple of websites each day, Bloglines is a service that will help you streamline the process of going through all your favorite sites. A Bloglines account helps your curate all your favorite blogs and websites into one accessible dashboard. The dashboard displays headlines, blog titles and other topics featured on the websites that you choose to add. You will be able to save time by simply checking your dashboard, which automatically updates whenever your blogs or websites do too.

5. Remember the Milk

Managing and prioritizing the tasks that you have to complete every day can be a stressful and time-consuming process. To increase your productivity, Remember the Milk helps you organize and complete all the things you need to do throughout the day. You can categorize your items into specific lists (e.g. Personal, Work, Study) or you can view all your items at once. This online task-manager can help you keep track of all the things you need to accomplish during your busy day.

This is a guest post from Erica Moss. Erica is the social media outreach coordinator for the online Masters in Nursing program at Georgetown University, which has one of the nation’s leading family nurse practitioner programs concentrations. She also loves exploring NYC, photography and meeting new people in her free time.

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